Ten Years of Food Blogging, Saved by One Mushy Pot of Rice

Last Friday night, around 9:40 PM, I was standing barefoot in my kitchen, staring at a burnt pot of jollof rice like it had personally offended me.

The gas was still hissing softly. My blender smelled like onions and regret. And my phone—balanced between a jar of dried thyme and a bowl of chopped tomatoes—kept buzzing with notifications from my food blog.

I’ve been in the food and recipes space for over ten years. Ten. Years. I’ve tested thousands of easy home recipes, ruined perfectly good meals experimenting with “healthy swaps,” and learned the hard way that not every viral TikTok recipe deserves peace.

But that night? That night was different.

I was supposed to be perfecting a new recipe for my blog:

“Smoky Party Jollof Rice (Beginner-Friendly, Foolproof)”

SEO-optimized. Keyword-rich. Structured headings. Internal links to my easy Nigerian recipes, one-pot meals, and quick dinner ideas.

Everything was ready… except the food.

The rice was mushy. The bottom was burnt. And somehow—somehow—it tasted both bland and aggressive at the same time.

I muttered, “So this is how careers end.”

My phone rang.

It was my younger cousin, Sola.

“Have you eaten?” she asked.

I laughed. Bitterly. “If suffering counts as food, yes.”

“Good. I’m coming over.”

“Please don’t,” I said, staring at the pot. “I’m fighting demons.”

She came anyway. Gen Z never listens.

Sola walked in, took one look at the pot, and gasped.

“Ah. This one needs prayers.”

“I followed my own recipe,” I said defensively.

She raised an eyebrow. “You sure this isn’t the old version from 2016? The one you deleted?”

That one hurt.

She tasted the rice, chewed slowly, then said, “It’s not bad… but it’s not comforting. It doesn’t taste like home.”

That sentence landed harder than any food critique I’ve ever received.

Because she was right.

Somewhere between SEO-friendly food content, healthy recipes, and trying to rank for best jollof rice recipe, I had forgotten why people cook in the first place.

Not for clicks.

For comfort.

I opened my laptop to update the blog post anyway. Habit. Muscle memory.

Ingredients list.

Step-by-step instructions.

“Cook for exactly 22 minutes.”

Sola leaned over my shoulder.

“Who cooks like this?” she asked. “Why are you lying to them?”

“I’m not lying.”

“You are. You don’t cook by time. You cook by smell. By sound. By vibes.”

I paused.

She wasn’t wrong.

Every good home-cooked meal I’ve ever made wasn’t perfect because of measurements—it was because I adjusted. I tasted. I listened to the pot. I remembered my mother saying, ‘If it smells right, it’s right.’

I sighed and closed the draft.

“I think I’ve been doing this wrong.”

She smiled. “Welcome back to real life.”

That night, instead of fixing the rice, I rewrote the entire post.

I changed the title to:

“How I Actually Cook Jollof Rice When Nobody Is Watching”

I added notes like:

If it smells burnt, add water and breathe.

If the stew tastes flat, it’s missing salt or patience.

If your rice spoils, it doesn’t mean you failed.

I linked it naturally to my other simple food recipes, budget-friendly meals, and beginner cooking tips.

No textbook explanations. Just truth.

I published it at 1:12 AM and went to sleep angry, tired, and hungry.

Scene 4: The Plot Twist

By morning, my phone was vibrating like it was possessed.

Comments. Shares. Emails.

One message stood out:

“I cried reading this. I thought I was the only one whose food never looks like Pinterest.”

Another said:

“This is the first recipe that made me feel normal.”

Traffic spiked. Not viral madness—but steady, human engagement. The kind that lasts.

Then came the email.

From a small food brand I’ve admired for years.

“We’d love to partner with you. Your storytelling around food feels honest. We don’t want perfect recipes—we want real ones.”

I sat on my bed and laughed.

Ten years in food blogging, and the moment I stopped pretending to be perfect was the moment everything worked.

That evening, I cooked jollof again.

No timer. No pressure.

Sola tasted it and nodded.

“This one?” she said. “This one can heal heartbreak.”

I smiled, stirred the pot, and thought to myself:

In food and recipes, perfection doesn’t build trust—honesty does.

And sometimes, the meal that almost ruins you becomes the one that feeds everything else.